Locking up teens just turns them into better criminals
It was an attack more akin to the streets of Los Angeles or South Africa. An elderly Asian woman is dragged from her parked car and beaten with a weapon for up to 10 minutes. She’s left for dead and her car is stolen.
Except this is Panmure, Auckland, and it’s very real.
Nancy Voon is tiny and frail. She is entirely defenceless when she is ambushed by her attackers in a car park.
In many ways this is a race attack too. It was a sickening, brutal bashing that police described as excessive and prolonged.
A 17-year-old girl has been charged with aggravated robbery and theft, while two people under the age of 17 are in Child, Youth and Family care.
Who are these young women? Where have they come from? What have their lives been like?
And, speaking more generally, how do we punish young offenders?
We are horrified. We want these young people behind bars. But does it work?
Not according to clinical psychologist Ian Lambie, who has dealt with young violent criminals for 20 years. He wants us to know:
Jail doesn’t work
Our jails are full. The prison muster is close to a record 10,000. Putting young people into adult prisons will only make them better criminals.
They must not be put with adult prisoners. We must focus on what they might be good at. Accentuate the positive and what they can achieve.
This is not an overnight fix. Keep these kids in school – 70 per cent of our serious young offenders are not in the classroom.
Keeping them in some form of education keeps them out of trouble.
There is a stubborn cohort of young people who are now more violent and volatile. This group is much harder to turn around.
Intervene in the family
We must intervene with at-risk families as early as possible. Place someone in the household like they now do in America, where nurses have visitation rights to monitor at-risk families and young parents.
These families need parenting courses and close supervision. It will be much cheaper over time compared to the cost of building prisons and housing inmates later in life.
Prisons are a fiscal and moral failure. The Government is now using new scientific research to develop new policy and they should be applauded.
Boot camps don’t work
If a young person has committed a heinous crime they will be held to account in an adult court and sent to a youth jail.
But scientific research shows for other young offenders, boot camps, military training and the ‘throw away the key’ approach has failed.
More young girls are violent
There’s been a real shift in adolescent crime. More girls are doing it. Weapons are being used.
While crime is coming down overall, there is a stubborn cohort of young people who are now more violent and volatile. This group is much harder to turn around.
Violence is to blame
Many of these young offenders come from gang homes. Their parents lack parenting skills. Drugs, booze and violence has been normalised from a young age.
But family violence and abuse is the overwhelming factor. Stop violence and you go a long way towards fixing the problem.
Not only are these kids seeing violence, they are receiving it from an early age. They are damaged kids, they repeat the behaviour and they have serious anger and mental health issues.
So for all of us who think, lock ’em up and deal to them – perhaps we need to think again?
Did anyone else think it was slightly rich and ironic of John Key to be on the international stage this week lecturing the world on Syria and the humanitarian crisis?
As he sat in the big boys’ chair pushing Helen Clark’s case to head the United Nations, I asked myself: have we done our bit and is our record that good?
On refugees the answer is a clear no. It took us 30 years to move our quota from 750. And even then we’ve only gone to 1000 (in two years’ time).
As other countries take in tens of thousands of Syrians we are taking an extra 600 over two-anda-half years in a special intake.
Could we do more? Yes, especially if we’re going to lecture the world about what is best practice.